Rolf in the Woods Part 9

The Indian smiled. "I knew you would, so I followed; last night I knew you must have your shakes, so let you go it alone."

Very carefully that deer was skinned, and Rolf learned the reason for many little modes of procedure.

After the hide was removed from the body (not the hand or legs), Quonab carefully cut out the-broad sheath of tendon that cover the muscles, beginning at the hip bones on the back and extending up to the shoulders; this is the sewing sinew. Then he cut out the two long fillets of meat that lie on each side of the spine outside (the loin) and the two smaller ones inside (the tenderloin).

These, with the four quarters, the heart, and the kidneys, were put into the hide. The entrails, head, neck, legs, feet, he left for the foxes, but the hip bone or sacrum he hung in a tree with three little red yarns from them, so that the Great Spirit would be pleased and send good hunting. Then addressing the head he said: "Little brother, forgive us. We are sorry to kill you. Behold! we give you the honour of red streamers." Then bearing the rest they tramped back to camp.

The meat wrapped in sacks to keep off the flies was hung in the shade, but the hide he buried in the warm mud of a swamp hole, and three days later, when the hair began to slip, he sc.r.a.ped it clean. A broad ash wood hoop he had made ready and when the green rawhide was strained on it again the Indian had an Indian drum.

It was not truly dry for two or three days and as it tightened on its frame it gave forth little sounds of click and shrinkage that told of the strain the tensioned rawhide made. Quonab tried it that night as he sat by the fire softly singing:

"Ho da ho-he da he."

But the next day before sunrise he climbed the hill and sitting on the sun-up rock he hailed the Day G.o.d with the invocation, as he had not sung it since the day they left the great rock above the Asalnuk, and followed with the song:

"Father, we thank thee; We have found the good hunting. There is meat in the wigwam."

Chapter 22. The Line of Traps

Now that they had the cabin for winter, and food for the present, they must set about the serious business of trapping and lay a line of deadfalls for use in the coming cold weather. They were a little ahead of time, but it was very desirable to get their lines blazed through the woods in all proposed directions in case of any other trapper coming in.

Most fur-bearing animals are to be found along the little valleys of the stream: beaver, otter, mink, muskrat, c.o.o.n, are examples. Those that do not actually live by the water seek these places because of their sheltered character and because their prey lives there; of this cla.s.s are the lynx, fox, fisher, and marten that feed on rabbits and mice.

Therefore a line of traps is usually along some valley and over the divide and down some other valley back to the point of beginning.

So, late in September, Rolf and Quonab, with their bedding, a pot, food for four days, and two axes, alternately followed and led by Skook.u.m, set out along a stream that entered the lake near their cabin. A quarter mile up they built their first deadfall for martens. It took them one hour and was left unset. The place was under a huge tree on a neck of land around which the stream made a loop. This tree they blazed on three sides. Two hundred yards up another good spot was found and a deadfall made. At one place across a neck of land was a narrow trail evidently worn by otters. "Good place for steel trap, bime-by," was Quonab's remark.

From time to time they disturbed deer, and in a muddy place where a deer path crossed the creek, they found, among the numerous small hoof prints, the track of wolves, bears, and a mountain lion, or panther. At these little Skook.u.m sniffed fearsomely, and showed by his bristly mane that he was at least much impressed.

After five hours' travel and work they came to another stream joining on, and near the angle of the two little valleys they found a small tree that was chewed and scratched in a remarkable manner for three to six feet up. "Bear tree," said Quonab, and by degrees Rolf got the facts about it.

The bears, and indeed most animals, have a way of marking the range that they consider their own. Usually this is done by leaving their personal odour at various points, covering the country claimed, but in some cases visible marks are added. Thus the beaver leaves a little dab of mud, the wolf scratches with his hind feet, and the bear tears the signal tree with tooth and claw. Since this is done from time to time, when the bear happens to be near the tree, it is kept fresh as long as the region is claimed. But it is especially done in midsummer when the bears are pairing, and helps them to find suitable companions, nor all are then roaming the woods seeking mates; all call and leave their mark on the sign post, so the next bear, thanks to his exquisite nose, can tell at once the s.e.x of the bear that called last and by its track tell which way it travelled afterward.

In this case it was a bear's register, but before long Quonab showed Rolf a place where two long logs joined at an angle by a tree that was rubbed and smelly, and showed a few marten hairs, indicating that this was the sign post of a marten and a good place to make a deadfall.

Yet a third was found in an open, gra.s.sy glade, a large, white stone on which were pellets left by foxes. The Indian explained:

"Every fox that travels near will come and smell the stone to see who of his kind is around, so this is a good place for a fox-trap; a steel trap, of course, for no fox will go into a deadfall."

And slowly Rolf learned that these habits are seen in some measure in all animals; yes, down to the mice and shrews. We see little of it because our senses are blunt and our attention untrained; but the naturalist and the hunter always know where to look for the four-footed inhabitants and by them can tell whether or not the land is possessed by such and such a furtive tribe.

Chapter 23. The Beaver Pond

AT THE noon halt they were about ten miles from home and had made fifteen deadfalls for marten, for practice was greatly reducing the time needed for each.

In the afternoon they went on, but the creek had become a mere rill and they were now high up in a more level stretch of country that was more or less swampy. As they followed the main course of the dwindling stream, looking ever for signs of fur-bearers, they crossed and recrossed the water. At length Quonab stopped, stared, and pointed at the rill, no longer clear but clouded with mud. His eyes shone as he jerked his head up stream and uttered the magic word, "Beaver."

They tramped westerly for a hundred yards through a dense swamp of alders, and came at last to an irregular pond that spread out among the willow bushes and was lost in the swampy thickets. Following the stream they soon came to a beaver dam, a long, curving bank of willow branches and mud, tumbling through the top of which were a dozen tiny streams that reunited their waters below to form the rivulet they had been following.

Red-winged blackbirds were sailing in flocks about the pond; a number of ducks were to be seen, and on a dead tree, killed by the backed up water, a great blue heron stood. Many smaller creatures moved or flitted in the lively scene, while far out near the middle rose a dome-like pile of sticks, a beaver lodge, and farther three more were discovered. No beaver were seen, but the fresh cut sticks, the floating branches peeled of all the bark, and the long, strong dam in good repair were enough to tell a practised eye that here was a large colony of beavers in undisturbed possession.

In those days beaver was one of the most valued furs. The creature is very easy to trap; so the discovery of the pond was like the finding of a bag of gold. They skirted its uncertain edges and Quonab pointed out the many landing places of the beaver; little docks they seemed, built up with mud and stones with deep water plunge holes alongside. Here and there on the sh.o.r.e was a dome-shaped ant's nest with a pathway to it from the pond, showing, as the Indian said, that here the beaver came on sunny days to lie on the hill and let the swarming ants come forth and pick the vermin from their fur. At one high point projecting into the still water they found a little mud pie with a very strong smell; this, the Indian said, was a "castor cache," the sign that, among beavers, answers the same purpose as the bear tree among bears.

Although the pond seemed small they had to tramp a quarter of a mile before reaching the upper end and here they found another dam, with its pond. This was at a slightly higher level and contained a single lodge; after this they found others, a dozen ponds in a dozen successive rises, the first or largest and the second only having lodges, but all were evidently part of the thriving colony, for fresh cut trees were seen on every side. "Ugh, good; we get maybe fifty beaver," said the Indian, and they knew they had reached the Promised Land.

Rolf would gladly have spent the rest of the day exploring the pond and trying for a beaver, when the eventide should call them to come forth, but Quonab said, "Only twenty deadfall; we should have one hundred and fifty." So making for a fine sugar bush on the dry ground west of the ponds they blazed a big tree, left a deadfall there, and sought the easiest way over the rough hills that lay to the east, in hopes of reaching the next stream leading down to their lake.

Chapter 24. The Porcupine

Skook.u.m was a partly trained little dog; he would stay in camp when told, if it suited him; and would not hesitate to follow or lead his master, when he felt that human wisdom was inferior to the ripe product of canine experience covering more than thirteen moons of recollection.

But he was now living a life in which his previous experience must often fail him as a guide. A faint rustling on the leafy ground had sent him ahead at a run, and his sharp, angry bark showed that some hostile creature of the woods had been discovered. Again and again the angry yelping was changed into a sort of yowl, half anger, half distress. The hunters hurried forward to find the little fool charging again and again a huge porcupine that was crouched with its head under a log, its hindquarters exposed but bristling with spines; and its tail lashing about, left a new array of quills in the dog's mouth and face each time he charged. Skook.u.m was a plucky fighter, but plainly he was nearly sick of it. The pain of the quills would, of course, increase every minute and with each movement. Quonab took a stout stick and threw the porcupine out of its retreat, (Rolf supposed to kill it when the head was exposed,) but the spiny one, finding a new and stronger enemy, wasted no time in galloping at its slow lumbering pace to the nearest small spruce tree and up that it scrambled to a safe place in the high branches.

Now the hunters called the dog. He was a sorry-looking object, pawing at his muzzle, first with one foot, then another, trying to unswallow the quills in his tongue, blinking hard, uttering little painful grunts and whines as he rubbed his head upon the ground or on his forelegs. Rolf held him while Quonab, with a sharp jerk, brought out quill after quill.

Thirty or forty of the poisonous little daggers were plucked from his trembling legs, head, face, and nostrils, but the dreadful ones were those in his lips and tongue. Already they were deeply sunk in the soft, quivering flesh. One by one those in the lips were with-drawn by the strong fingers of the red man, and Skook.u.m whimpered a little, but he shrieked outright when those in the tongue were removed. Rolf had hard work to hold him, and any one not knowing the case might have thought that the two men were deliberately holding the dog to administer the most cruel torture.

But none of the quills had sunk very deep. All were got out at last and the little dog set free.

Now Rolf thought of vengeance on the quill-pig snugly sitting in the tree near by.

Ammunition was too precious to waste, but Rolf was getting ready to climb when Quonab said: "No, no; you must not. Once I saw white man climb after the Kahk; it waited till he was near, then backed down, lashing its tail. He put up his arm to save his face. It speared his arm in fifty places and he could not save his face, so he tried to get down, but the Kahk came faster, lashing him; then he lost his hold and dropped. His leg was broken and his arm was swelled up for half a year.

They are very poisonous. He nearly died."

"Well, I can at least chop him down," and Rolf took the axe.

"Wah!" Quonab said, "no; my father said you must not kill the Kahk, except you make sacrifice and use his quills for household work. It is bad medicine to kill the Kahk."

So the spiny one was left alone in the place he had so ably fought for.

But Skook.u.m, what of him? He was set free at last. To be wiser? Alas, no! before one hour he met with another porcupine and remembering only his hate of the creature repeated the same sad mistake, and again had to have the painful help, without which he must certainly have died. Before night, however, he began to feel his real punishment and next morning no one would have known the pudding-headed thing that sadly followed the hunters, for the bright little dog that a day before had run so joyously through the woods. It was many a long day before he fully recovered and at one time his life was in the balance; and yet to the last of his days he never fully realized the folly of his insensate attacks on the creature that fights with its tail.

"It is ever so," said the Indian. "The lynx, the panther, the wolf, the fox, the eagle, all that attack the Kahk must die. Once my father saw a bear that was killed by the quills. He had tried to bite the Kahk; it filled his mouth with quills that he could not spit out. They sunk deeper and his jaws swelled so he could not open or shut his mouth to eat; then he starved. My people found him near a fish pond below a rapid. There were many fish. The bear could kill them with his paw but not eat, so with his mouth wide open and plenty about him he died of starvation in that pool.

"There is but one creature that can kill the Kahk that is the Ojeeg the big fisher weasel. He is a devil. He makes very strong medicine; the Kahk cannot harm him. He turns it on its back and tears open its smooth belly. It is ever so. We not know, but my father said, that it is because when in the flood Nana Bojou was floating on the log with Kahk and Ojeeg, Kahk was insolent and wanted the highest place, but Ojeeg was respectful to Nana Bojou, he bit the Kahk to teach him a lesson and got lashed with the tail of many stings. But the Manito drew out the quills and said: 'It shall be ever thus; the Ojeeg shall conquer the Kahk and the quills of Kahk shall never do Ojeeg any harm.'"

Chapter 25. The Otter Slide

It was late now and the hunters camped in the high cool woods. Skook.u.m whined in his sleep so loudly as to waken them once or twice. Near dawn they heard the howling of wolves and the curiously similar hooting of a horned owl. There is, indeed, almost no difference between the short opening howl of a she-wolf and the long hoot of the owl. As he listened, half awake, Rolf heard a whirr of wings which stopped overhead, then a familiar chuckle. He sat up and saw Skook.u.m sadly lift his misshapen head to gaze at a row of black-breasted grouse partridge on a branch above, but the poor doggie was feeling too sick to take any active interest. They were not ruffed grouse, but a kindred kind, new to Rolf.

As he gazed at the perchers, he saw Quonab rise gently, go to nearest willow and cut a long slender rod at least two feet long; on the top of this he made a short noose of cord. Then he went cautiously under the watching grouse, the spruce partridges, and reaching up slipped the noose over the neck of the first one; a sharp jerk then tightened noose, and brought the grouse tumbling out of the tree while its companions merely clucked their puzzlement, made no effort to escape.

A short, sharp blow put the captive out of pain. The rod was reached again and a second, the lowest always, was jerked down, and the trick repeated till three grouse were secured. Then only did it dawn on the others that they were in a most perilous neighbourhood, so they took flight.

Rolf sat up in amazement. Quonab dropped the three birds by the fire and set about preparing breakfast.